


wasteland, baby!

by tjnyplanets



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, Kinda?, M/M, Mentioned Junhao, Not Beta Read, Romance, and watch the first ep of going svt 2019, dino voice go big or go home, mentioned seoksoon, mwah, please just go listen to hoziers new album, they love each other but love is scary, they're not idols
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 02:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18086000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjnyplanets/pseuds/tjnyplanets
Summary: falling in love and the end of the world isn't that different, but to them, that's okay.





	wasteland, baby!

**Author's Note:**

> for some relevant background noise listen to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4rKN_qW5DU&pbjreload=10) song!

_All the fear and the fire, of the end of the world, happens each time a boy falls in love with a girl._

 

Much like the end of it all, they don't see it coming. The collision of two social circles, a mixer that nobody and everybody wanted to attend, was the beginning of their story.

 

Wonwoo, trailing behind Soonyoung and Jun, steps inside of the cramped apartment. It's dim, with the fairy lights strung haphazardly around the room providing the only bit of clarity for him (he should have worn his glasses). The smell of alcohol and smoke and cologne bought by one's mother is stifling, the open windows doing nothing to clear the fog. He exhales, and sits on the beaten leather chair in the living room, wondering why he let them convince him to come. They promised it would be worth it, that he would regret staying in all night, but as Wonwoo watches Jun sit a little too close to Minghao for it to just be friendly, he muses that maybe his friend just needed the excuse to come.

 

Watching them and their hushed whispers, their fleeting touches, makes him feel.. something. In his chest. A tight type of feeling. Maybe he has heartburn.

 

Whatever it is, the room is suddenly too hot for him, filled with too many people teetering on the edge of incapacitation, his breath comes out harder and faster and he has to leave right now, so he heads for the kitchen, in search of anything cold. He walks down the tight hallway, feeling like his shoulders are brushing either of the walls surrounding him. He passes a cracked door, and for a brief second, he thinks he sees Soonyoung sitting on top of someone. Seokmin, he thinks, the all-consuming boy who works in the bookstore with him.

 

He walks faster.

 

So fast, in fact, he speeds right into a mass at the entrance of the kitchen.

 

"Oh, do you need to get through?" The mass asks him. Wonwoo's haze clears and he sees a boy looking down at him. He sees big eyes and a face painted with surprise. He nods, and thankfully the boy moves for Wonwoo to slide past him. What he doesn't expect though, is the boy to continue to walk with him towards to fridge. His figures his face must have said as much because the boy shakes his glass, ice cubes rattling against the sides. "I needed more, anyway." He says, not quite meeting Wonwoo's eyes. His face is red. Wonwoo thinks that maybe, he doesn't, but he keeps that to himself. The boy throws open the fridge door, looking a little sheepish when it hits the counter in a way that's too loud for the current atmosphere of the room.

 

With the light now highlighting his features, Wonwoo can't help but stare at his brows and nose, his shoulders and his lips. The boy puts a can into Wonwoo's hand, fingertips brushing fingertips. He meets his gaze.

 

"I'm Mingyu, you?”

 

_All the things yet to come are the things that have passed, like the holding of hands, like the breaking of glass._

 

It’s funny, Mingyu thinks, how they ended up here. Mingyu was sure that the party wouldn’t be worth it, that the second time they saw each other Wonwoo wouldn’t recognize him, that the third time he’d refuse his number, that the fourth he’d be left waiting in his favorite cafe for a date that would never show. But, as he rubs his thumb over the back of Wonwoo’s hand and listens to the steady breathing in front of him, he’s glad that he’s not right all the time.

 

It’s funny how before, Mingyu was the one watching his friends with their people, thighs touching and looks lingering. Back then, something akin to jealousy, to want, would crawl up his spine, creeping from vertebrae to vertebrae. Now, he’s the one who’s being watched. The one with his hand on someone’s leg, his gaze meeting someone else’s.

 

For a while, Mingyu is okay with just this. But, as the time passes and the seasons change he grows restless, not sure what label he can put on what they are, what they have, what _it_ is. He fails to realize how fragile _it_ truly is. 

 

(A glass balanced on the edge of a table.)

 

“Jun told me, ‘I love you’, yesterday,” Minghao tells him, a quickly emptying bottle of wine between them. Mingyu feels nauseous. “I think I love him too.”

 

It’s funny, how Mingyu doesn’t think he knows if Wonwoo has said those three words yet. He washes that thought away with the cheap cabernet.

 

(A hand comes down, hard, and the glass falls.)

 

“Why won’t you call me your boyfriend?”

 

Wonwoo looks at him, with a face he hasn’t seen before, and he very quickly decides he doesn’t like it. “I mean, we are, right?” He tries again, pretending like he can’t hear how desperate he sounds, how small.

 

“Wonwoo?” He reaches out, to grab the hands he’s grown so familiar with. They’re pulled back.

 

(It shatters.)

 

“Let’s end this.”

 

_Be still, my indelible friend, you are unbreaking._

 

Wonwoo retreats back, like a dog running to lick its wounds. 

 

He feels like an insect pinned to a board, scrutinized by his roommates. Both will look at him, but that’s where those similarities end. Soonyoung talks too much, about meaningless things. The weather. The dog he saw yesterday. One night, when they’ve all had a little too much to drink, Wonwoo thinks he almost said Mingyu's name. Soonyoung was quick to recover, hiding his mistake with a coughing fit and the hasty mention of another name, Minghao’s, talking about an art piece he saw the boy working on. 

 

As for Jun, well, Wonwoo doesn’t think they’ve had a proper conversation since that night.

 

(The beginning of the end.)

 

* * *

 

 

_“Let’s end this.” He says. The haze is back._

 

_“What?”_

 

_“I don’t think this is working for me anymore”He doesn’t meet Mingyu’s gaze, he doesn’t think he can. He doesn’t know why._

 

_“No, that’s not it, Woo. You can’t do this right now. Why can’t you answer my question?”_

 

_Wonwoo has never seen Mingyu look so young, so innocent, so… unlike himself. The word hurt flashes through his mind, there and then gone like it was never there to begin with. He feels dirty._

 

_Mingyu speaks again, but Wonwoo can’t hear him. He remembers the first night. How he felt looking at Jun, at Soonyoung. It wasn’t the cramped space making him sick, and he realizes now. He remembers Mingyu’s bright eyes looking into his. The fingertips brushing his. The smile when Wonwoo accepted his number, the look of pure elation directed at him when he stepped into the cozy coffee shop, the strong hands on his waist, the soft breathing on his neck, he remembers how he felt during it all. A terrible, crushing feeling in his chest, making his throat tighten in a way that halts his breathing. How he wanted to enjoy it all but he didn’t think he could. He still doesn’t._

 

_He thinks he might throw up._

 

_“Have a good night, Mingyu.” And with that, he exits the apartment. He’s fine on the walk back to his, greeted by the silence of an empty home. He’s fine when he sits on his bed, and he’s fine when he feels warm tracks on his face. Soonyoung must’ve turned on the heater before they left, he thinks._

 

_(He didn’t.)_

 

* * *

 

 

He goes to visit his family one weekend. Has the nicest meal he thinks he’s had in weeks, laughs and ‘remember when’ being thrown across the table. When he retreats back to his old room later that evening, he notices an old book resting on the shelf. His high school yearbook. Warmed by the memories his family shared earlier, he decides to take a peek inside the book.

 

He sees the faces of his classmates, the ones he knew for all those years. Jun, Soonyoung, everyone else. Most of them don’t keep in touch anymore, but he can’t say he minds. One face in particular sticks out to him, though. A boy, the same one he thought he liked in junior year and the same one he went on his first ever date with. Wonwoo asked him out, a rush of ‘ithinkilikeyoudoyoumaybewannagetsomethingtoeatthisweekend’. They ended up getting dinner. The night was nice, he enjoyed it. They ate and talked and laughed and when the boy dropped him off at home, he sat on his bed and sobbed. Thoughts of _what if I don’t actually like him and I’m leading him on, I don’t want to be tied down, I don’t deserve this_ ran through his head. Twenty minutes after the date ended, he pulled his phone out and sent a long-winded text to the boy. Too many words for what he was really trying to say (I’m scared of letting people in and I’m scared of love, thus I’m scared of you). He remembers the regret bubbling up the next morning, but he convinced himself that it was the right move anyways, and went on with his life.

 

He remembers the hurt he felt when that boy brought someone else to prom. The  _it_ _could’ve been me._

 

Suddenly, Mingyu is all he sees, and he doesn’t want Mingyu to be his next regret.

 

The next night, after the goodbye hugs and a long train ride, he finds himself at a station, not his, but the one that is on the way to a certain someone’s apartment. The one with fairy lights and the fridge that’s far too heavy to open softly. He doesn’t deserve this, him, he thinks, but this time he welcomes that thought. Sometimes, people get things that they don’t deserve.

 

He knocks.

 

Mingyu opens the door, in the clothes Wonwoo knows he sleeps in, eyes groggy and blinking like he doesn’t quite know what he’s looking at. It seems that he realized quickly, though, shock painting his face. “Woo?”

 

“Can we start over?”

 

“What?”

 

“The first night, let’s start over. Like strangers” He presses a little more forcefully, stepping closer. He doesn’t deserve this.

 

But Mingyu, eyes as bright as ever, reaches his hand out, “I’m Mingyu, you?”

 

This time, Wonwoo grabs it, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever let go again.

 

_Wasteland, baby, I’m in love, I’m in love with you. That’s it._

 

They talk about it all, their fears and that night and them. They learn more about each other now than they knew in the months prior. They like it. 

 

Wonwoo brings Mingyu over a few days later. During dinner, Jun, as sly as ever, grabs his hand and smiles. Soft and knowing. Wonwoo musters up everything he can to not cry while his friend laughs and turns away, pretending like he was listening to Soonyoung and Mingyu’s conversation the whole time.

 

Things are okay, and the giddiness Wonwoo feels when Mingyu introduces him to his friends as his boyfriend is something that he doesn’t think he’ll ever get over.

 

And one night, when they’re laying in bed, Mingyu’s arm draped over his stomach and his face pressed into the crook of his neck, Wonwoo presses a soft “I love you” into his hair. It’s not spectacular, or extravagant, it's not screaming it from the rooftops for all to hear. 

 

To Mingyu, though, that’s all he needs.

 

**Author's Note:**

> sooooo first ever fic! i've been in love with hozier's new album and that song in particular and wow. my body was basically holding me hostage until i wrote this one. i thought meanie was good for this hehe lmk if you enjoyed it!! let's talk about hozier lets talk about svt lets CHAT! also yes, wonwoo's high school thing is totally inspired by a true event.... unlike wonwoo it still hurts me *deep breath*


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